We used to call it user-generated content, or citizen journalism/media. Now, it’s crowdsourcing, and Gannett is stepping to the front of the field, or so it is according to news reports.

Gannett has announced a companywide initiative to change the way it gathers news. Newsrooms are no longer newsrooms. They are now information centers. Reporters no longer work on print deadlines. They report information as they get it. And they no longer work isolated from the people they cover or read their stories. They now work in tandem with the community to cover the community.

Or at least that’s the goal.

Wired has more, which will introduce you to the term crowdsourcing, a word coined by Jeff Howe (previous post).

None of the concepts behind Gannett’s initiative are new — a lot of us have been talking about the need for digital-first publishing for a long time, and the need for reporters to become more multimedia savvy, and the need to involve the community more in our reporting — but Gannett is making the most public and transforming commitment yet to 21st Century Journalism. Call it whatever you like, but if Gannett is true to its word, then good, because this is the way it should be.

UPDATE: Doug Fisher has more on Gannett blowing up the newsroom.

UPDATE II: Leonard Witt has a related post.

UPDATE III: Greg Yardley wonders if cloudsourced journalism can’t be gamed by bad actors.  I say, depends on how good the editors are at the head of the cloudsourcing tail.

[tags]crowdsourcing, gannett, journalism[/tags]